Win Japanese Resources By Telling Us Your Favorites

by

It’s been about a month since we launched our “Japanese Resources Page” – on it we say things like “blah-didy-blah japanese resource this that etc” but we thought it would be fun for you guys if we just put our money where our mouths are. Not all the resources on the Japanese Resources page are free (some of them are, though, and they’re awesome), so we thought we’d give you some of the paid ones using cash from our very own Scrooge McDuck gold coin swimming pools (that way you don’t have to). We have a lot of cool resources to give away, too.

How To Win (It’s Suspiciously Easy)

On our Japanese Resources page, we have “recommend” buttons. They look like this:

The cool thing about these is that they’re linked to Facebook, meaning only real people can “recommend” something. Although individual items will get fewer votes by using Facebook (I’m guessing), the idea is that each “recommendation” will have a lot more umph behind it. Real people are recommending these resources, and I think people will be pickier about what they choose. That’s awesome, I think. You can really get an idea already what’s a great resource out there, just based off this (though some newer stuff has fewer recommendations).

We’re greedy fugus over here, though, so we want to bribe you to give some recommendations on this page (if you haven’t already). Here’s how to enter the contest.

  1. Make sure you have a Facebook account (big sorries if you don’t!)
  2. Go to the Japanese Resources page on Tofugu.
  3. Recommend one or more resources by hitting the “recommend” button. Pick your favorites! The ones you’d actually recommend to someone else for their awesome-ness.
  4. Come back here and leave a comment, telling us what you recommended and why. Be sure to add your email in the email field when doing your comment, that’s how we’ll contact you if you win something.
  5. Hope for the best. There are a couple different ways you can win something (and a bunch of prizes, see below), but we’ll start giving stuff out next week.

Quick, easy, and helps out both of us, I think (especially if you win something). More importantly, it will help others to find great Japanese resources, based off of your recommendations. You’re changing people’s minds! 0_0

Prizes

Out of our own linty pockets we’re providing prizes. Some of the prizes are ours, some are others – there’s a good mix of stuff going on, here, with different ways to win them, depending on what they are.

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What: TextFugu “Forever” Subscription
How: We’ll pick one comment at random, below.

TextFugu is Tofugu’s online Japanese textbook. It’s made specifically for self-learners of Japanese (sorry classrooms, businesses, and the FBI) and tries to make sure you don’t hit any of the pitfalls of learning Japanese on your own (losing motivation, getting stuck, etc). We’ll be giving away one forever (lifetime!) subscription to one lucky (and hoopy) frood.

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What: Lifetime Subscription to MangoLanguages Japanese
How: We’ll pick one comment at random, below.

Mango Languages is a great way to learning quick, practical Japanese really quickly. If you’re one of those people who don’t want to bother with all the fancy linguistic aspects of a language and just want to learn how to ask for directions, make small talk, or order at a restaurant, Mango Languages is for you.

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What: 1 Year Subscription to Lang-8′s Premium Program
How: We’ll pick one comment at random, below.

Lang-8 is a social network that focuses on language exchange. You write journal entries in the language you’re learning (Japanese?) and then Japanese native speakers will correct your journal entries using a cool correction tool (that helps you learn from your mistakes). Normally Lang-8 is free, but there’s also a great Premium version of the site (I’m a subscriber, actually, it’s nice). We’ll be giving away a single one year subscription to one lucky winner.

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What: Forever Subscription To Gakuu
How: We’ll pick someone at random out of people who mention in their comment that they’re intermediate / advanced!

Gakuu is a site that puts out regular lessons based off of real (raw) Japanese (we’re talking signs, letters, etc… things that are real Japanese used in reality in Japan). This service is more for intermediate / advanced students of Japanese, so we’ll try to pick someone who can use Gakuu effectively (so it doesn’t go to waste!).

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What: 1 Year Subscription to ReadTheKanji
How: Recommend a kanji related resource and we’ll pick someone at random from that pool of people

ReadTheKanji is a really effective, interesting way to practice kanji. It uses vocab to show you different kanji, and based off your answers rates the individual kanji within the vocab to help you to study what you aren’t very good at. It’s a great tool for all levels! One lucky kanji-loving commenter will get a one year subscription to this service.

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What: Ultimate Nouns (1&2), Adjectives, and Verbs Vocab Packs
How: One out of five recommenders/commenters will get this prize (those are pretty good odds)!

The “Ultimate Japanese Vocab” packs are some of the first things to appear in our (somewhat) secret Tofugu Store (shh, hasn’t been announced yet). These packs give you the 200 most common verbs, the 200 most common adjectives, and the first 200 most common nouns. By learning vocab in the right order, you’re making sure that you get the most bang for your Japanese-vocab-learning-buck, meaning you get to use the Japanese you learn a lot faster. These “packs” consist of an Anki deck and a pdf+excel file with all the words, their meanings, kanji verison, kana version, and so on.

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What: Ultimate Nouns #1 Pack
How: “Recommend” something on the Japanese Resources Page then Comment. Everyone wins!

This is just the Ultimate Nouns Pack (not all four of the currently available ones). it consists of the 100 most common Japanese nouns, and is a great way to get started on your Japanese vocabulary. By learning these words you’re sure to learn the most useful words in the Japanese language. That’s pretty awesome. Everyone who does the Facebook Recommend on the Japanese Resources page and then comments here telling us your #1 recommendation on that list wins themselves a pack of Nouns (Anki deck + PDF/Excel file). Hooray for winning! Tiger Blood!

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Rules

There you have it. Odds are really good on some of these, not as good on others. There are some rules, though:

  1. You have to recommend something on the Japanese Resource Page first (that means you need a Facebook account to recommend with).
  2. We’ll only count one comment from each person, below (so don’t spam comments… we know your IP address! Be nice to others!)
  3. We’ll try to make sure one person doesn’t win more than one prize (besides the Ultimate Vocab packs, because everyone wins one of those, at least!).
  4. We’ll start giving things away a week from now. That’s August 8th. Probably won’t get everything out on that day, but expect to start hearing from us then (and the rest of that week). Make sure you put your email in correctly while leaving your comment, otherwise we won’t be able ot get ahold of you :(
  5. Comments that are particularly entertaining / well written / etc may or may not get two entries into the “random choosing pool.” Quality is king, ya’all.
  6. Also, tweeting / liking / G+ing this post may or may not also help you out. Probably won’t, but just sayin’, you know?

That’s it – get to it if you want to get to it! Let us know if you have any questions, too.

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  • Jarom B Reid

    Rikaikun/chan has been tremendous for me.  Even though I have worked for years as a Japanese tour guide in Hawaii, my kanji is pretty awful.  As a tour guide, I met Japanese friends every day, and if they were cool enough, I exchanged email addresses with them.  Every day I email my new friends in Japanese (which looks deceptively good thanks to Microsoft) expecting replies in Japanese.  Without Rikaikun I wouldn’t get 2 sentences in without turning to my Japanese dictionary.  But with it I get the furigana and definition, teaching kanji and vocabulary simultaneously. #winning

  • tyler.m43@gmail.com

    Many people will recommended the obvious choices like Genki or try to kiss ass picking Text Fugu
    (did i mention that is a wonderful way to lean Japanese :P)  but I
    personally love Japanese the Manga Way. It teaches the Japanese grammar
    through a way that’s easy to understand, and the manga makes it much
    easier for me to remember. I admit it doesn’t teach vocab (and there for
    kanji) very well, but for me learning grammar first frees me up to
    learn the vocab. That’s the reason I chose Japanese the Manga Way over
    traditional textbooks :)

  • Nicholas Kew

    i Love Textfugu :) Currently a lifetime member already and loving everything about it! The best place to learn Japanese by far, why? It is because everything there is easy to relate to, period. :) Go get Textfugu!

  • tyler.m43@gmail.com

    Many people will recommended the obvious choices like Genki or try to kiss ass picking Text Fugu
    (did i mention that is a wonderful way to lean Japanese :P)  but I
    personally love Japanese the Manga Way. It teaches the Japanese grammar
    through a way that’s easy to understand, and the manga makes it much
    easier for me to remember. I admit it doesn’t teach vocab (and there for
    kanji) very well, but for me learning grammar first frees me up to
    learn the vocab. That’s the reason I chose Japanese the Manga Way over
    traditional textbooks :)

  • Nicholas Kew

    i Love Textfugu :) Currently a lifetime member already and loving everything about it! The best place to learn Japanese by far, why? It is because everything there is easy to relate to, period. :) Go get Textfugu!

  • Chiruba

    Textfugu and Anki are my weapons of choice. Textfugu is great, as it’s completey different to any other way of learning, and works brilliantly. Granted it may not be for everyone, however if you have the initiative to go out there to teach yourself Japanese, chances are it will suit you.

    All the updates, the community within and the funny fugu fish make it my favourite resource :)

    Anki goes hand in hand with textfugu. It’s free and is easy to use. What more could you want?

  • Chiruba

    Textfugu and Anki are my weapons of choice. Textfugu is great, as it’s completey different to any other way of learning, and works brilliantly. Granted it may not be for everyone, however if you have the initiative to go out there to teach yourself Japanese, chances are it will suit you.

    All the updates, the community within and the funny fugu fish make it my favourite resource :)

    Anki goes hand in hand with textfugu. It’s free and is easy to use. What more could you want?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000510513077 Ross Spencer

    I recommended Anki, AnkiMobile, Kotoba!, Genki, Japanese the Manga Way, and Rikaichan! I shared this on Twitter (rspencer2) and facebook (Ross Spencer). I’d like you to add AnkiDroid for Android users! It’s an open source Anki port to Android!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000510513077 Ross Spencer

    I recommended Anki, AnkiMobile, Kotoba!, Genki, Japanese the Manga Way, and Rikaichan! I shared this on Twitter (rspencer2) and facebook (Ross Spencer). I’d like you to add AnkiDroid for Android users! It’s an open source Anki port to Android!

  • Anonymous

    I have done 4 or so years of college Japanese classes (translation, speaking, writing), but all that time and money invested into those courses just didn’t turn out results for me. With the impending doom of going to Japan for the first time in about 5 months, I’ve been studying by myself (fortunately, the sheer terror of being in a foreign country has been a big motivating factor) and using a lot of different resources. The ones that I recommended are:

    Japanese the Manga Way – I’m about half way through it and I love it. Having manga integrated into learning grammar and vocab motivates me to keep learning because it’s fun! However I think that this is a book for those who have already had some other basis in Japanese. I think it’d be tough for a beginner to find this book very useful or easy to understand. Oh, and I love the comic “What’s Michael,” which the author uses in this book. :3

    Anki – Anytime I encounter a word I don’t know when I’m studying my various materials, I put it into my deck in Anki and try to review it everyday. I’ve been very surprised just how effective this has been for learning new words. I don’t even have great memory skills either.

    Japanese Pod 101 – I work full time but I have a job that allows me to multitask, so I’ve started listening to the beginner series of pods. They can get pretty goofy, but I do think you get to learn phrases and cultural information that is very useful and that you don’t hear in classes. I would highly recommend the Survival Phrases pods for anybody of any level. For example, I just learned how to exchange money into yen…

    It’s not on the list but I also have a box of 1,000 Japanese vocabulary cards made by Vis-Ed. I pick out 6 everyday and take them to work, then look at them from time to time throughout the day. I don’t have one of them fancy iPhones so I like having these around when I’m not by a computer and have a spare moment. :)

    I haven’t started reviewing or learning kanji again yet but I’m contemplating trying out “Remembering the Kanji.” I would love to hear what everyone thinks of this book/method of kanji learning. I also would like to try the other resources on the list once I move on from my current ones. ^^;

    Err… not sure if my email is visible or not. tekunoredii@gmail.com

  • Mark Morikawa

    I recommended Denshi Jisho. To appreciate a good thing, you gotta go through a bad thing. That bad thing is Freedict.com, a terrible online dictionary for Japanese (and probably any language). I thought to myself “I guess my life sucks because this is the only online dictionary I know of.” Then I discovered Denshi Jisho. It was the dictionary I was looking for. With it, I can learn words and Kanji as it aids me in my study, watching Japanese dramas and interpreting my Japanese friends on Facebook!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526125712 Breana Clark

    I love TextFugu because it’s totally froody!

    Tae Kim’s grammar guide is wonderful!  So much info for free..  <3
    It covers everything, from the really basic, to the very advanced, so it's good in that it grows with you..  good for me, since it's hard to find free resources for more advanced Japanese learning (at least easily).  I think, though, that to use it, you have to have some good knowledge of *English* grammar to be able to use it fully (it's kinda hard to learn another language if you don't know how to properly use the language you're learning it from, after all).

    Remembering the Kanji is perfect, because I need all the help learning kanji that I can get.  ^^;

    Japanese for Busy People is great, but I find it a little hard..  it probably would be better if I had a teacher, I must admit.

    I *love, love love* Rikaichan!  I don't think I could live without it.. one of the first things I started looking for to put on my new Android phone. lol

    Anki is nice, since you can take already-made lists…  the best replacement for Smart.fm, I think.

    Lang-8 is good, since you can get some nice feedback, and help people learn in return.  (I sometimes wonder, though, if the people on there aren't playing some big joke on us all, and trying to teach us horrible Japanese, just because they think it's funny.  Just kidding!)

    JapanesePod101 is excellent for practicing with comprehension, and working on my pronunciation.

    Forvo also helps out tons with pronunciation.  (I use it for all kinds of stuff, not just Japanese.  ^^;  I'm a geek like that).

    The Tofugu cheat sheet is soooo adorable (and useful), although I am to the point where I'm advanced enough not to need it.. but, it would have been so helpful when I was trying to learn the particles.

    The NihonShock cheat sheet is very, very useful for me, though, since I have trouble remembering verb conjugations and endings..  I'm considering my wallpapering my room in copies of it.  ^-^  
    (I don't think that my mother would appreciate my wallpapering everything in the new house we're building, though…  (we're from Joplin, luckily our insurance didn't screw us over like some companies did to other people there).  Maybe she'll let me paper the closet.  haha).

    And, the Textfugu hiragana and katakana charts are super-elegant.. I'm thinking I will paper one wall in those, and the rest in the NihonShock ones.  lol

    Denshi Jisho is great, another thing for learners…  it's so useful…  if only it came in a print version!  (imagine how big it would be, though. O.o)

    ALC is also nice…  but, it doesn't have the sometimes-wonky translations of sentences that Denshi Jisho has. (some of those literally make me laugh out loud).

    And….  man, I'm a geek…  *^-^* 
    It looks like all I do is study Japanese, judging from how long my comment is.  LOL
    (it isn't far from the truth.  XD  Hopefully starting college in the fall won't interfere too much with my ability to continue improving my Japanese.)

    My email is:
    iheartllawliet (at) aol (dot) com

    Thanks for such an interesting idea, here, Koichi!  ^^
    And, thank you for the Japanese language resource page, it's a lifesaver!  Now, if only there were some Android applications..  *hint, hint*. lol  (kidding, I understand that you only want to recommend the best!  So, it just means that there isn't something you like enough yet to recommend.)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=526125712 Breana Clark

    I love TextFugu because it’s totally froody!

    Tae Kim’s grammar guide is wonderful!  So much info for free..  <3
    It covers everything, from the really basic, to the very advanced, so it's good in that it grows with you..  good for me, since it's hard to find free resources for more advanced Japanese learning (at least easily).  I think, though, that to use it, you have to have some good knowledge of *English* grammar to be able to use it fully (it's kinda hard to learn another language if you don't know how to properly use the language you're learning it from, after all).

    Remembering the Kanji is perfect, because I need all the help learning kanji that I can get.  ^^;

    Japanese for Busy People is great, but I find it a little hard..  it probably would be better if I had a teacher, I must admit.

    I *love, love love* Rikaichan!  I don't think I could live without it.. one of the first things I started looking for to put on my new Android phone. lol

    Anki is nice, since you can take already-made lists…  the best replacement for Smart.fm, I think.

    Lang-8 is good, since you can get some nice feedback, and help people learn in return.  (I sometimes wonder, though, if the people on there aren't playing some big joke on us all, and trying to teach us horrible Japanese, just because they think it's funny.  Just kidding!)

    JapanesePod101 is excellent for practicing with comprehension, and working on my pronunciation.

    Forvo also helps out tons with pronunciation.  (I use it for all kinds of stuff, not just Japanese.  ^^;  I'm a geek like that).

    The Tofugu cheat sheet is soooo adorable (and useful), although I am to the point where I'm advanced enough not to need it.. but, it would have been so helpful when I was trying to learn the particles.

    The NihonShock cheat sheet is very, very useful for me, though, since I have trouble remembering verb conjugations and endings..  I'm considering my wallpapering my room in copies of it.  ^-^  
    (I don't think that my mother would appreciate my wallpapering everything in the new house we're building, though…  (we're from Joplin, luckily our insurance didn't screw us over like some companies did to other people there).  Maybe she'll let me paper the closet.  haha).

    And, the Textfugu hiragana and katakana charts are super-elegant.. I'm thinking I will paper one wall in those, and the rest in the NihonShock ones.  lol

    Denshi Jisho is great, another thing for learners…  it's so useful…  if only it came in a print version!  (imagine how big it would be, though. O.o)

    ALC is also nice…  but, it doesn't have the sometimes-wonky translations of sentences that Denshi Jisho has. (some of those literally make me laugh out loud).

    And….  man, I'm a geek…  *^-^* 
    It looks like all I do is study Japanese, judging from how long my comment is.  LOL
    (it isn't far from the truth.  XD  Hopefully starting college in the fall won't interfere too much with my ability to continue improving my Japanese.)

    My email is:
    iheartllawliet (at) aol (dot) com

    Thanks for such an interesting idea, here, Koichi!  ^^
    And, thank you for the Japanese language resource page, it's a lifesaver!  Now, if only there were some Android applications..  *hint, hint*. lol  (kidding, I understand that you only want to recommend the best!  So, it just means that there isn't something you like enough yet to recommend.)

  • Vitor Eiji Justus Sakaguti

    #1 is Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese, it was the best thing I ever found when I was a beginer and it was amazingly helpful.

    #2 is Rikaichan. I just can’t live without it. Knowing all the grammar from TK’s guide and using Rikaichan you can read a LOT of stuff.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000301140148 Heidi Bathory

    Mango Languages:
    It’s a great way to learn Japanese if your planning to visit Japan. It first gives you a small conversation to listen to before each lesson, and this conversation in the beginning of each chapter is what your going to be learning. It then breakes down each sentence, word, and it’s origin, and then gives you the word, and gives you around 5 seconds to say/remember the word. After you are done your lesson, you can leave or take a break, and the next lesson will give you a new conversation. It also reviews words and sentences you learned in previous lessons to insure you have learned them. As you finish chapters, it will challenge you sometimes and ask things like “if you know how to say this, how would you say this?”.
    Mango Languages is a great resource, it has romaji, kana, and it even has cultural sidenotes in the middle of some chapters to make sure you know some cultural facts and standards about Japan, so when you leave for Japan, you don’t make a fool of yourself when you turn ‘左’ (hidari;left),  into someones house when the stranger that gave you directions said ‘右’ (migi;right).

  • Jedunster

    I recommend Remembering the Kanji because it is a fun approach to learning the kanji and is much more painless than other techniques. I also recommended Anki because it is a great flashcard program which handles the task of scheduling without needing to go through any hassle. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=699560075 Michael W Macmullin

    I Recommended Japanese for everyone because the pictures one the cover remind me of a video i saw once the video was very funny so i thought that was worth a recommendation. Textfugu Because your sticking it to the man and his institutionalized learning methods. And JapanesePod101 because it truly does have an extensive library of pod casts and audio files to learn from. I would also like to Recommended the Michael Thompson Japanese language CDs as there likely the best learn and listen style CDs out there. and the web site Yesjapan as the videos on the site are so funny that it makes learning Japanese very fun.

  • sophiebee

    I recommended Kotoba because I study Japanese by distance education in highschool and have nobody to ask for help so when I’m stuck so I always use this app to look up words, kanji and how to change verbs.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bob-Roberts/100000499401710 Bob Roberts

    Hey Guys!So here’s my choices :

    Japanese for Everyone – I started learning japanese in high school, and later  when I was kind of “stalling out”, I ran across this book. I go back to it from time to time, but for the most part, my now well-loved and seriously beat up old copy was a valuable resource!

    Rikaichan – When online, using this is faster than gong to my iphone for Kotoba! (I’m gettin there!)!

    Japanese pod 101 – I DL these to my phone and listen in the car….best way to get the listening practice.

    And last but CERTAINLY not least, KOTOBA! – What can I say about this? I don’t know how many times this program came to my linguistic rescue while in Japan! I’ll also randomly pop into the proggy and just look up stuff if I fand myself waiting on the wife while shopping etc  : )

    Thanks guys!!

  • Dan_plus_o

    Hello, I would like to highly recommend three resources that I use for learning Japanese.

    The first resource is the almighty and user friendly TextFugu! I unfortunately have not come by the spare cash to buy a lifetime subscriptions but I have been through all the free lessons more then a few times and I can definitely tell it’s worth getting a lifetime subscriptions. Textfugu has a very nice layout that is not too overwhelming and is loaded with nice pictures and great inspirational phrases. Koichi doesn’t just present you with great lessons but he also helps you with studying and has study plans at the end of the lessons. Having the study plan at the end of the lesson is a great idea and is missing from a lot of other Japanese learning resources. You can have a great lesson but if you don’t know how to study it properly, it won’t be very effective. For those reasons I can highly recommend Textfugu. I’m for sure going to get a lifetime subscription as soon as I get the spare cash… Darn Bills!!

    My second recommended resource is Lang-8. This site is really great and I highly recommend it to anyone learning another language. The idea of Lang-8 is to write journal entries and then have native speakers correct your mistakes. This is great because everyone is able to help each other and it creates a great community. I have met a few very nice Japanese people on Lang-8 that I regularly email and keep in contact with. Another great thing about Lang-8 that I think a lot of people don’t think of doing is to follow other people learning Japanese. I like to find people that are around my same skill level and follow all of their entries. By doing this I can see what the most common mistakes beginners make and make sure I don’t fall into the same problems. The best way to learn is by your own mistakes but why not learn by your own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

    My third recommended resource is “Remembering the Kanji” by James W. Heisig. I was able to find this book second hand for a good price and I am glad I did. This book uses the mnemonics approach to teach you Kanji and anyone who is familiar with this style of learning knows it is a great way to learn. I would definitely recommend reading through the Kanji and then closing your eyes and imaging everything you just read as if you were in that exact situation. This is proven to help greatly with remembering things.

    I could of recommended much more but I would rather recommend the resources that I actually use on a regular basis. I haven’t used Textfugu in a while but that’s because I can only go through the free lessons so many times. As soon as I get the spare cash to buy a lifetime membership, I will be rocking textfugu every day.

    Thanks for reading my recommendation and thanks koichi for the awesome opportunity to win some sweet stuff. Good luck to everyone! 

  • Judith Stockem

    I recommended ReadtheKanji. I love it, it’s a really quick way to really memorise those kana.

  • Judith Stockem

    I recommended ReadtheKanji. I love it, it’s a really quick way to really memorise those kana.

  • Gleng

    I recommend Japanese the Manga way. It’s good for people who love to read manga and you get to also learn informal Japanese which is better if you want to speak to a friend or something like that. Using manga, you get to have lots of fun while learning lots of useful Japanese. 

  • Grujcyk

    Hellowz, I recommended only two resources – RTK1 and Anki-for two reasons:
    1. As Kanji seems to be a biggest problem to most japanese basic-to-intermediate learners (as it is for me now-I’d say I’m intermediate now), the synergy of using mnemonics from RTK1 and putting them into spaced repetition system of Anki is just unbelievable, it’s definitely over 9000 in scale of japanese learning efficiency for me ; )
    2. zkanji dictionary is still not added to the resources page, if it was it would be my third recommendation ;)

    以上です ;)

  • Ross Spencer

    Oops I forgot to give my reasons for my recommendations! Haha! For things NOT on the list I recommend AnkiDroid and Aedict! AnkiDroid is an open source port of Anki to Android so in case the dev were, say, smacked in the face by a Tanuki’s huge testicals or forgot to check for evil Obake by saying もしもし when answering the phone, someone else could take over. It’s nice because now the dev has like 15 helpers helping him work out the kinks in the nightly builds and translating it into different languages. Aedict is this really cool dictionary that lets you use like 4 different Japanese dictionaries at once. It’s also for Android. Anyway, I use Anki for everything from Spanish reviewing, Japanese learning with Genki (my first actually not boring as golf [literally watching grass grow] textbook), and even to plan my future world domination with orders of which countries/target audience to take over first (start with the young impressionable children that watch the Disney Channel, then work my way up to the hicks so I have disposable troops that know how to do labor, work shotguns, etc.). Genki is a nice textbook with lots of pretty pictures (FINALLY AN EDUCATIONAL BOOK WITH PICTURES!), except the annoying Mary is about as interesting as Bella from Twilight. And of course, it DOES have text, but I’ve learned to deal with that. ;) Unfortunantly, there aren’t any stroke order drawings or even any real lessons on Kanji, so you’ll want to grab Remembering the Kanji for that horribleness (OR TEXTFUGU! Except I’ve never tried textfugu past the free Kanji lessons which were a bit, how do I say this, Kanjiless. I’d like to actually get textfugu some day, but now I’m on a tight budget and just don’t have the money for it now…). Kotoba! is a nice little dictionary for iPhone and is free, aka the price of air. I’ve found it muy helpful. Not sure what else to say… :awkward/: Oh, and I use Rikaikun instead of Rikaichan (it’s the Chrome port) and it’s more helpful than a Tanuki’s ginormous ballsack. I gotta go stfu (stop that flying unicorn; aka a pegasus) and jfdi (jump, fly, drop, and Idk). Ross out. お休みなさい。 ♪(*^^)o∀*∀o(^^*)♪ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノ☆彡
    Ps I did Facebook by accident so use this email if by some chance I were to overcome my suckishly bad luck and win something awesome like, say, textfugu permenently (I know it’s randomly selected, but that and the packs for Anki are the only prizes I like lol.)

  • Leon Pritchard

    Recommened (maybe went a tad overboard) most things I use and like the sound of… becuase your worth it ;) lol.

  • Michael

    I recommended Textfugu only because its the Chuck Norris of learning Japanese! Seriously, its great for any self learner who wants a somewhat painless and fun way to learn Japanese. I also recommended ReadTheKanji because it honestly makes you feel like a boss after seeing how much kanji you’ve learned, and the website overall is just so great at helping anyone learn kanji.

  • Pulsing_Pressure

    Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese is great, it’s what I’ve been using so far. Anki removes the hassle in physical index cards, so that’s pretty helpful (as long as my laptop still has juice in it). I can’t afford a TextFugu forever subscription, and my parents would never let me use their card to subscribe! :’( By the way, thank you for making the Japanese language and culture entertaining!

  • http://www.spurked.com Peter Joseph

    I don’t have facebook D:

  • RoomC

    Genki has been my
    number 1 go to book for a while now. Unlike most books it gets right
    into the Japanese and banishes any English from touching it’s pages
    rather early on. The price of these books are rather high (with an
    RRP of £57.18) which can be a bit of a turn off, so if you want
    something a little cheaper but still worth your time, TextFugu is
    always good! But I would defiantly recommended Genki hands down as
    being my personal best book for learning Japanese!

    (email: cshep1991@hotmail.com)

  • RoomC

    Genki has been my
    number 1 go to book for a while now. Unlike most books it gets right
    into the Japanese and banishes any English from touching it’s pages
    rather early on. The price of these books are rather high (with an
    RRP of £57.18) which can be a bit of a turn off, so if you want
    something a little cheaper but still worth your time, TextFugu is
    always good! But I would defiantly recommended Genki hands down as
    being my personal best book for learning Japanese!

    (email: cshep1991@hotmail.com)

  • yunteng

    I’ve actually recommended “Japanese, the Manga Way”. I was pretty surprised that it was on the list of Japanese resources, I personally chanced across this book around four years ago and immediately bought it. I spent most of my December break reading it (I’m still a student haha) and I picked up TONS of Japanese vocabulary. What I like is that it really teaches you the rules and HOW to use them, in a very comprehensible and easily-understood manner.

    The following year, I started learning Japanese formally, and I was amazed (and pleasantly surprised) and how much I already knew. It really helped me build a good foundation for my subsequent years of learning, and now here I stand, four years of learning Japanese and taking JLPT N2 at the end of this year. It’s really good at serving as a foundation, and I never regretted the fifty bucks I spent on it.

  • Dominic Neumayer

    I recommended rikachan(RevTK Community Edition),it’s perfect for beginners,who don’t know that much kanji yet(like me^^) and yet still dare to engage in a lot of conversations with Japanese Natives(with my “crappy Japanese”) on Twitter. It’s a true lifesaver.Rikachan for the Win!!!
    Furthermore I recommended Anki! Seriously what would learning Japanese be without Anki (and rikaichan)?Dozens of premade decks and an easy-to-use UI to create new decks and cards.
    All in all those two programms are a great help for the japanese Student. (E-Mail:x3attacks@gmail.com)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1038727404 Miriam Francos

    Well  firstly I recommended the book ‘Japanese for Everyone’ because although I was a bit worried about how big it was, I wasn’t distracted by any romaji because everything was in Hiragana or Katakana (and later Kanji) and it had cute illustrations in it. I’m also more of a textbook style learner, so it’s easier and more fun for me to sit down with the textbook and learn by writing and reading. 

    I also highly recommend the Japanesepod101 audio tracks which I tend to listen to on the way to school. They have fantastic speakers who are really entertaining to listen to and you can tell that they really enjoy what they do. The website is good, though you only get the most from it when you get the free trial of the premium audio. When you do, I recommend you already know which audio your most interested in and DOWNLOAD, DOWNLOAD, DOWNLOAD and when I g0t mine I must have downloaded about 100+ tracks…and hoarded them.

    Textfugu’s hiragana and katakana charts were also a godsend for me, and I printed them back to back, highlighted and laminated them (something you need to know about me – I love stationary!) and spent ages learning them. Once I was familiar I found out the stroke order and got my head round the kana. Again, your cheatsheet to particles also helped me out greatly (hence the recommendation) as it is brilliantly made – it doesn’t overwhelm you with all the particles, just the more common ones and it’s easy and clear to read. Again I found the need to highlight and laminate that too!

    And finally I used the ‘Kotoba!’ app on the iPhone all the time, and it’s easy to use, good looking (oh-er) and means I can look up words on the go. As with any dictionary, it also allows me to search for rude words in Japanese and giggle over them/use them in everyday conversation. 

    Just in case the facebook email thingey didn’t take my email is: miriamfrancos[at]dsl[dot]pipex[dot]com

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1591608013 Elysia Womersley

    To start with Textfugu, as a self-learner this resource has given me a lot more structure in my learning as there are individual lessons within seasons and downloadable vocabulary lists to get studying… which brings me to my second recommendation, Anki! 

    It’s a shame that smart.fm closed and became a pay site, but Anki, which is a free resource, is just as good (if a little bit less flashy looking) ^^ I love to use Anki because it keeps me on track with my revision. I’m sure that without it I would be struggling to remember all this vocabulary… And my handwriting’s not brilliant so writing hundreds of flash cards out would just be a failure!

    Lastly, lang-8 is a wonderful site. Getting corrections and insight from native speakers is always a boost when learning a language, and guess what? You can use it for practising up to two languages for free (premium gives more features, I believe)! It’s a real help and the added bonus is that everyone on there seems to be super-nice =) although this means I actually spend more time correcting journals of friendly Japanese people rather than writing my own too often ;_;

    I really would like to give Gakuu a go in the future, probably when I’ve covered a bit more of the Textfugu content! It seems like it would be very useful for advanced students who want to keep up their reading ability when they’re not sure what to do next with their studying…

  • http://thefineapps.com Clarence Olivier

    I liked Reading the Kanji.

    First, I love how the program adapts to your knowledge, so that it’ll test you for the things that you suck at more.

    Second, the website excels at simplicity. The main two features are “The Quiz” (test your knowledge) and “Stats” (See how are you doing). No whistles and bells here, just what you need.

    I can see myself using this tool frequently.

  • IchiStyle

    I’ve been learning the language for some time now, and have made use of it in Japan itself, so I reckon myself to be a intermediate/advanced learner. :)

    I recommended Anki, Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese, Lang-8 and Gakuu!

    Since I’ve started learning Japanese I’ve made use of tons of resources to make sure that I was actively learning every part of the Japanese language.  Anki has been a huge help in making sure that no matter what resources I used there was always some form of daily improvement in my speech, reading and writing due to newly added flashcards. Reading up on Tae Kim’s guide gave me the tools to weave these sentences together and last but not least Lang-8 is a very cool way to test all these gathered skills! I’ve also recommended Gakuu because I really like the initiative! It sounds like a very handy resource that is worth giving a try.

    However these are all resources I am using right now, for a beginner textfugu seems like a very good choice.

  • Rhiannon83

    I recommended Rikaichan because it saves a lot of time and means I don’t have to stop and interrupt my flow when I am reading/working. Jisho.org is great for when I am studying and I want to spend the time looking up and learning new words and getting lots of info but Rikaichan is quick and easy.

    Although I am following RTK i’m not sure that I would recommend it for everyone as I think it suits a certain type of learner more than others.

    I have recommended Textfugu to fellow Japanese learners based on Tofugu and the free lessons as I can’t afford to buy a subscription yet, but I will once I get a job!

    I also use and love Anki and quite a few others on your page but I
    didn’t want to spam my facebook friends, especially only a few of them
    are interested in Japanese!

  • Rhiannon83

    I recommended Rikaichan because it saves a lot of time and means I don’t have to stop and interrupt my flow when I am reading/working. Jisho.org is great for when I am studying and I want to spend the time looking up and learning new words and getting lots of info but Rikaichan is quick and easy.

    Although I am following RTK i’m not sure that I would recommend it for everyone as I think it suits a certain type of learner more than others.

    I have recommended Textfugu to fellow Japanese learners based on Tofugu and the free lessons as I can’t afford to buy a subscription yet, but I will once I get a job!

    I also use and love Anki and quite a few others on your page but I
    didn’t want to spam my facebook friends, especially only a few of them
    are interested in Japanese!

  • Fishy Chips

    I recommended these resources. Having an income of $0 its only free stuff.

    Tae Kim: The site is amazingly detailed. Very good for elaboration on things often described vaguely in other places. I tend to like stuff that have both a “literal” and “figurative” explanations. Great overall source.

    Lang8: I only used it a short amount of time before having my attention diverted to more important things, and besides, my Japanese isn’t quite good enough to really benefit from it a whole lot. That said, it is an amazing example of a site- for Japanese and English. Don’t use the translator. Defeats the purpose.

    Anki: AMAZING AMAZING!! There are sooo many decks downloadable. I have a couple only, but it really is good. A couple really good one are the “Core 2000 Japanese Vocabulary” deck and the “How to Tell the Difference Between Japanese Particles” deck. Probably the top choice for me, having no money and all. (Bonus: many, many other decks are available. I also have a German one, but there are ones on almost anything.)

    RealKana: Really good tool for those vaguely familiar with the Kana. I personally got about 750% better at Hiragana and Learned Katakana almost entirely off this.

    Rikaichan: Kanji=Huge roadblock for many people on accessing “real” Japanese websites and such. It makes you feel superhuman, and builds your confidence. Don’t abuse it.

    In addition I recommended all the sheets. I have the Ultimate one laminated, and have the Kana charts printed. They are great for a quick check when in doubt.

    I haven’t tried any more of these, but, nevertheless I feel the 5 listed themselves are quite useful. One thing besides these I would recommend are audio programs. I don’t like the Japanesepod101 ones myself, having no money and all, I can’t afford the premium membership, and its just too much hassle to deal with. Plus most of the thing is promoting itself.

  • Basma

    I recommended Textfugu, Anki & Denshi Jisho

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=513461855 Paul Sheen

    http://www.alc.co.jp/index.html is a great site to support your Japanese learning. It sources from a lot of great dictionaries and also acts like a corpus in a way as it uses a lot of online news resources in its searches. It’s great for checking chunks & collocations, sadly I think it is overlooked by many people despite its usefulness.

  • Efrat

    I chose few things:
    1) Anki- it realy helps, and you can use decks of the resources you use. And it’s free!
    2)JapanesepPod101, because it’s good for practicing hearing.
    3)NihonShock’s cheat sheet, because it has so much important things in it, and you can take it everywhere and just take a look if you you need. And of course, it’s free. 
    4)Denshi jisho, because it’s realy good you can look for kanjies by radicals.
    5) Rikaikun and rikauchan, because it helps if you see a word you don’t know.

  • Marcus

    I recommended Lang-8, Anki, rikai-chan and Tae kims guide.

    Lang-8 as it really will help you to learn real natural japanese and it´s also a really fun way of learning while possibly getting new friends!

    Anki, which is in my opinion one of the easiest ways to get atleast that little study time everyday even if you are too busy with work or school to be able to sit hour after hour with tetxbooks.

    Rikai-chan for being the fast way to look upp all those pesky words and knajis hindering your readning! Last but not least I recommend Tae kims guide for being a generally good textbook with easy to understand explenations.margeta-[at]hotmail[dot]com

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1635704913 Even Tolo Dybevik

    Hi! My name is Even, I’m 14 year old from a little city in Norway! :] I reccomended more than one thing, here they are:
    TextFugu: I honestly haven’t got that or payed for it, but I have read all the free lessons and they’re really good and I just know the full TextFugu must be great too!
    Tae Kim’s Guide to learning Japanese: I have both Tae Kim’s apps for my iPhone and the first one is great for Japanese grammar and sentence construction and stuff like that! His Kana app is also very good for remembering them, still have problems with Katakana ;]
    Mango Languages: I reccomended that, I have only tried the free lessons, I signed up twice, one for the Japanese and one for the German. Both of them were great! I can now say Ii tenki desu ne? Which I couldn’t before. And if the rest of the website is just like the free trials. I know it will be awesome and effective!
    Tofugu’s Japanese Particles Cheatsheet: This I reccomended because particles are hard sometimes, therefore I have this cheatsheet on my deskop to look up some of the particles when I wonder, it’s really usefull!
    Kotoba: I have this on my iPod, it’s for learning Kanji, which I haven’t started on yet but I have only taken the easy ones and it seem great!
    I didn’t reccomend any of the dictiponary cause’ I haven’t tried them. But I use one called Tangorin, which is pretty nice and has always helped me with words.

    I really, really wan’t to win either TextFugu (My goal!) or Mango languages since I have been a Japanophile all my life and love Japan and Japanese with all my heart, thank you so much for this opportunity! :] Also I didn’t know where to put my e-mail >_<' Anyways it's: even_td@hotmail.com

  • http://www.facebook.com/nadine.lapworth Nadine Lapworth

    Hey Tofugu! I’ve been stalking the website for ages but this is my first comment, hoorah!
    As a bit of background I’ve only started PROPERLY learning Japanese the past few weeks before I start my degree in it this September! However I’ve been doing little bits here and there for years.

    So, I reccomend…. *drumroll*

    1. TEXTFUGU
    I haven’t been able to purchase a subscription or membership simply because I’m a poverty-stricken student, but I have used the lessons that are available for free and they have explained things in an entertaining, and clear, way. I especially like the way the website is presented as I’m a bit of a picky web-designer myself. I love the clarity of the layout and the easy transitions between lessons. I didn’t think I’d adjust to learning from a screen (who doesn’t like the feel of a good book?) but it actually works for me. The pace is also good for complete beginners like me! Though obviously it can’t be used as a resource on it’s own… you need a place for DRILLING (or shall I say, a bit of Textfugu homework?)

    2. Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese
    This is an excellent resource for some basic points but in much greater detail than can be found in most other places. I found it easier to print off the PDF’s because otherwise the wall-of-text is a bit off-putting on a screen. I’ve learnt some great information from this website which I haven’t seen elsewhere, and I look forward to gathering more intermediate grammar points as I progress.

    3. Anki
    An obvious reccomendation; making flashcards in real life is a LOT more time consuming and this is a simple and easy way to create them and test yourself. I haven’t really adopted the use of the ‘Easy – Very difficult’ options as I like to practice all the kana that I’m learning again and again to keep them drilled in! However I am sure this would be more useful when learning the Kanji. One niggle I would say is that it’s not the prettiest of software, but that’s just me being picky!

    4. Rikaichan
    I LOVE Rikaichan. For someone who hasn’t learnt many Kanji yet it works wonders for translating (or, trying to make sense of…) sentences online. It is also really useful for grammar, because through this translation you can see the way sentences are constructed. It also gives the kana for all the Kanji that it translates, which is also an awesome feature. Defnitely my favourite resource so far.

    5. Real Kana
    Does what it says on the tin; I love the fact you can choose which kana to revise (which I haven’t seen anywhere else, apart from Anki obviously) which is great for people like me learning them now.

    6. NihonShock’s Ultimate Japanese Cheat Sheet/Tofugu’s Japanese Particles Cheat Sheet
    Both these cheatsheets are great for beginners like me, trying to make sense of the particles and other grammatical points! I like the depth of NihonShock’s sheet, but I also love the simplicity and clarity of Tofugu’s sheet.

    And there you have it!

    (Email: theologay(at)live(dot)co(dot)uk)

    P.S. Thanks for the resource list! It’s the most useful that I’ve found online so far. :)

  • Mark

    Anki, ‘Fugu, Tae Kim, Solid combo, Especially Textfugu, highly reccommended, I’m nearly up to to the top of it though, so its best for beginners, if you’re in Lower Intermediate or above (possibly me) then you should prob try Gakuu (which I haven’t tried yet, but looks good) or try a month of it (like I did, but I’d love to buy a lifetime pass, so I can always do the new stuff as it comes up)

    Anki because you can create your own list OR steal someone elses, and the smart repitition is savage. Also because you need it for Textfugu, all the lists and stuff.

    Tae Kim’s guide because it’s a savage grammar guide, and makes for good iphone reference.

    (email: Mark.1003@yahoo.com)

  • http://twitter.com/tonyplaystation Tony Playstation

    Anki for the iPhone (other smartphones are also available) is really, really good and stuff. 

    Yes it’s expensive for an app, but I can put barely any effort into learning Japanese while I’m in a restaurant, waiting for a bus, having a poo or anywhere else you’d care to mention (except on a plane, despite my protests that I had it on “airplane mode”).

    A few minutes here and there throughout the day has led to me doing 600+ hours of bonus Japanese studying in 9 months! I kid you not when I say that this is a “bitchin’” investment.AnkiMobile. It’s the bee’s knees!

  • http://twitter.com/tonyplaystation Tony Playstation

    Anki for the iPhone (other smartphones are also available) is really, really good and stuff. 

    Yes it’s expensive for an app, but I can put barely any effort into learning Japanese while I’m in a restaurant, waiting for a bus, having a poo or anywhere else you’d care to mention (except on a plane, despite my protests that I had it on “airplane mode”).

    A few minutes here and there throughout the day has led to me doing 600+ hours of bonus Japanese studying in 9 months! I kid you not when I say that this is a “bitchin’” investment.AnkiMobile. It’s the bee’s knees!

  • Only Revolutions

    I recommend Tae Kim’s Guide and Anki, because I don’t have the possibility to buy any kind of resources, a computer and Internet are all I can use, and having learnt English on my own because school didn’t really teach me anything, I’d rather keep learning on my own, at my own pace. At that level,  Anki is a great way to learn new Kanji and vocab, and Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese (+ Grammar Guide) are very practical ways to learn how to actually speak, phrase things, and I know that if I keep doing a little Japanese every day, I’ll get to the point where I’ll be able to have a normal conversation in Japanese :)

    I also recommend rikaichan (although I use rikaikun), because it is very practical to look up and learn new kanji/words as long as you don’t overuse it.

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